You can now book for dinner at Cafe Cressida too, whose menu comes from “one of Sydney’s most proficient cross-pollinators of cuisines”.
14.5/20
Cafe$
Look, between you and me, I generally don’t care to leave the house for breakfast or its next-of-kin, brunch. With respect to Bill Granger, once you’ve had one avocado toast you’ve had ’em all and I can scramble eggs perfectly well at home. Every time I start to think we’re making great leaps forward as a civilisation, I’m reminded that people still line up for granola. If you must eat at somewhere with tables before midday, the good folk of the Qing Dynasty invented yum cha years ago.
There are exceptions, of course, such as the North American diner-style Happyfield in Haberfield and drowned eggs in chicken broth at Darlinghurst’s A.P Bread & Wine. When singular chefs write an all-day menu, delicious things can happen. Case in point: Cafe Cressida, which opened in Woollahra’s Queens Court in January.
Chef Phil Wood and Lis Davies are the couple behind Cressida (named after their daughter), which is, fundamentally, a nice place to sit on a coffee and read the paper. Cushioned seats are upholstered in marigold stripes, water is poured in Maison Balzac glasses and illustrations of a prancing burger decorate the menu and exterior walls. The real-life cheeseburger is a fun time, too: a beefy, medium-rare patty on a squishy potato bun. Local wildlife (common mynas, twitchy dogs) make short work of crumbs.
Tables are spaced far enough apart that you won’t hear couples spoiling the Good Weekend Quiz: “Who puts bloody Worcestershire in prawn cocktail sauce? The answer’s Tabasco! I’m writing a letter.”
Speaking of, there’s a ripper prawn roll here with happy iceberg lettuce and herby sauce ravigote.
Fresh produce is a cut above across the board, and the gazpacho is not too acidic, not too cold, just right. Raw tuna is brightly plated with sesame oil-glossed soba, avocado, edamame and radish for what I suppose you’d call a “health bowl”.
I never expected “Woollahra cafe” and “great breakfast congee” to be next to each other in a sentence, but here we are. Wood (who also runs two-hatted Ursula’s in Paddington with Davies) is one of Sydney’s most proficient cross-pollinators of cuisines. Rice is simmered in a chicken stock fragrant with ginger and five-spice, and garnished with shredded chook, jammy chilli sauce, fried peanuts and croutons. It’s as punchy as it is stupidly soothing.
Wood and head chef Federico Barbuto can be trusted to send the best version of eggs any way you like them, served with toasted Iggy’s sourdough, for $19.
You can also have that sourdough with Charentes-Poitou butter, oysters and Laurent-Perrier champagne, which is what life’s all about, really. That, and the Sicilian-style orange cake made famous by Margie Agostini when she ran her own cafe at the site in the ’90s. Wood has revived its light buttery crumb for all morning tea needs.
On a recent Saturday evening, the place was a bit quiet, but I suspect the no-reservations policy was keeping a few locals at home. That’s since been rectified and you can now book for dinner. Two thumbs up for the tuna tartare with sesame on a crunchy potato rosti; crisp-skinned grilled snapper with lemony caper butter; and super-tender fillet steak served on a peppy, tomato-based sauce vierge.
Meanwhile, a dense French-Canadian-style sugar pie topped with grapes and lemon curd is the kind of dessert that should only be consumed when you have nothing else on for the day. Get thee to a couch and two fingers of brandy, stat.
Despite Wood’s fine-dining know-how, Cafe Cressida is still very much, well, a cafe. Don’t come expecting the dish complexity of Ursula’s; do come expecting warm, smart-casual service. There are also house-baked carrot cake muffins, a very popular chicken sandwich, dippy eggs and soldiers, and a crab omelette with XO sauce. If you can’t find something you want to eat, I don’t know what to tell you. Heck, even I want to return for brunch.
The low-down
Atmosphere: All-are-welcome neighbourhood cafe
Go-to dishes: Congee with shredded roast chicken ($19); prawn roll ($33); fillet steak with sauce vierge ($39); Margie Agostini’s orange cake with Chantilly cream ($12)
Drinks: Garden party cocktails and short well-priced wine list championing classic Australian regions and producers
Cost: About $70 for two at brunch or lunch, excluding drinks
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine
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